Hey guys! I'm going to do a new monthly post here on the blog. There are a few spending areas I would like to work on this year, and I think some accountability would really help my resolve (and my memory... it's easy to forget goals sometimes). So, I'm going to do a monthly spending report for 1) groceries, 2) personal care, 3) household items and 4) clothing.

Here goes!

Groceries ($130.00): $90.18

We only spent 69% of our grocery budget this month! I managed to pull this off by eating from the freezer and pantry. We were also gone for a week in January and I skipped a shopping trip because we were sick. The money that I didn't spend will probably go toward bulk purchases later in the year.

Personal Care ($15.00): $23.97

I went over in this category thanks to my fabulous Bath and Body Works haul. Did you know that B&BW has a semi-annual sale where many items are 75% off? Well, they do, and it definitely drew some dollars from my pocketbook. We also bought toilet paper this month. I could have done better on the TP (we bought it at Home Depot), but I waited too long for a deal. We ended up paying full price at a not-cheap store.

I can see already that toilet paper might be my biggest challenge in this area. One roll costs about $0.60 and usually lasts at least four days. That means our toilet paper should cost about $5.00 per month. However, in January all three of us had runny noses from cold/ cold weather/ etc. I don't buy Kleenex, so we use toilet paper for tissues*. The sickness wiped out (no pun intended) a large amount of the toilet paper that I just bought. $15.00 budget minus $10.00 worth of toilet paper does not leave a lot left for buying other personal care items. In coming months I will keep an eye out for fantastic deals (as in, almost free) on Kleenex to keep handy in case of sickness.

*I do sometimes use a handkerchief when I'm consistently blowing my nose. This saves money on TP, but some people think that handkerchiefs are gross. I can understand that.

Household Items ($25.00): $21.52

Last month I bought trash bags and laundry soap. For laundry soap, I bought our usual large container of Xtra from Walmart, and a smaller bottle of Tandil from Aldi. I need to do some detailed math to see if the Tandil is a better deal than Xtra. Normally I just make our own laundry detergent (and I still use that for clothing), but Baby's cloth diapers require a stronger detergent. The Xtra works great for her diapers- I just wanted to experiment and see if the Aldi brand was a better deal.

Clothing ($225.00/year): $50.93

I bought a nursing shirt last month for $19.99. I got Baby Girl a super-cute sun hat for vacation in Cancun ($14.99), plus five sets of baby leg warmers ($15.95) to wear with her cloth diapers. I probably could have made the sun hat, but would've had to buy a pattern (and probably only saved a few dollars unless I found a multi-sized pattern). Baby sewing patterns are definitely going to be on my thrift store/garage sale list this year. I'm thinking I could have made the leg warmers as well; either with old sweater sleeves or knitting them from scratch. However, now I do have some store bought leg warmers to use as patterns for future pairs.

One thing I did this month is make a "needed clothing" printable to use as a garage sale shopping list. Baby clothes are ABUNDANT and far cheaper at garage sales than at thrift stores. The cheapest you are going to find baby clothes, even on 50% off / $0.99 day, is $1.00 per item. Garage sale items are frequently $0.50, $0.25 or even less. The last three months taught me just how fast babies can grow. I want to make sure I have a whole wardrobe for her in 12- to 24-month sizes by the time our 2018 garage sale season is over, so I don't end up paying $2.00 or $3.00 per piece for stuff she will grow out of in a month or two.

I had the same idea to blog monthly about my new grocery budget! So if you see something along that line in the future, know I'm not trying to copy you. ;)

When Adam was born, I made a bunch of my own baby wipes out of flannel, just by cutting squares and serging the edges. I've since received some free/inexpensive real cloth wipes, so the homemade ones (that I cut a tad smaller than I should've), are now stored in a drawer in a central location where any of us - even the 2 year old - can easily grab to wipe noses. This is super helpful because kids like to pull out every single tissue, or unroll entire rolls of toilet paper. It is also handy because my baby had a chronic runny nose this winter (probably due to her having 12 teeth already), so we're saving dollars by using the homemade tissues!

As far as baby clothes, yard sales are such a good way to find a lot for a little. However, I haven't had much luck in finding many over the course of the summer to meet my direct needs as far as the right sizes in the right gender or the right sizes but in the wrong season. Or else I'll go to a sale and end up finding out it's not really anything I cared to spend my money on. My favorite way to stock up on baby clothes are mom2mom sales. They are yard sale prices (maybe a tad higher), but in excellent quality. When something is stained it's often in a free bin! I prefer these sales because there are so many vendors in one place, so this means one morning of my time for a years worth of clothing. All the mom2mom sales I've been to have been in the fall, so at the end of yard sale season I'm able to stock up on whatever I didn't have any luck finding throughout the summer.

Reply

Bethany

2/8/2018 09:00:08 am

Reusable tissues are a great idea! I like that they don't have the "gross factor" of a handkerchief, but they're still reusable.

I did a quick google search of mom2mom sales. Found a whole list of sales in MI for 2018, but none in my area. :( Maybe I'll look again later in the year.

Also, there are LOTS of financial bloggers who do spending reports, so I just copied the idea from several other people. It wasn't really an original idea of mine. LOL.

Reply

Jessica

2/8/2018 12:59:02 pm

I don't know if this would be too gross, but have you looked into using a bidet/cloth wipes? I've been thinking of investing in one. We're already doing diaper laundry anyway and I've heard once people try out they love it :)